A conversation with Lyndsy Fonseca

On Saturday, May 7, the Hallmark Movie Channel will premiere “Ordinary Miracles.” The cast includes C. Thomas Howell (“ET: The Extraterrestrial,” “Invasion”), Corbin Bernsen (“L.A. Law,” “General Hospital”), Sarah Aldrich (“Port Charles”), and stars Jaclyn Smith (“Charlie’s Angels”) as Judge Kay Woodbury, who is about to sentence a troubled teenage girl to a juvenile correctional facility when she makes a decision that might prove to be divinely inspired, or foolish, or even dangerous. Lyndsy Fonseca (“The Young and The Restless”) co-stars as Sally Powell, the 16-year-old whose once uncertain future is changed as a result of the judge’s action.

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Lyndsy Fonseca, who plays Sally Powell in “Ordinary Miracles,” says, “When you think about it, Sally really didn’t have an uncertain future. From what she had already gone through and what she had already done, her future would probably be more of the same: painful, difficult, and ultimately, short

“What Sally needs is a miracle,” Fonseca continues. “And miracles don’t really happen, or I should say, you don’t expect them to happen.”

But apparently they do.

“I agree,” Fonseca says. “And in the movie, the miracle touches a lot of lives, starting with Kay (the judge) and Sally.

Instead of sentencing Sally to a juvenile facility, Kay takes her into her own home. She decides to find Sally’s father — someone Sally never met, and never thought she’d want to meet. Kay, who had gone through a bad marriage and shut herself up emotionally, also learns to trust her feelings.”

During Fonseca’s three years on “The Young and The Restless,” she portrayed a troubled teenager named Colleen Carlton.

“I learned a lot about playing Sally from playing Colleen. She acted out and did a great many foolish as well as dangerous things that could have hurt her and others. Her parents were divorced, and she spent much of her time away from her father, and when she did get back with him she had to share him with his new wife’s daughter. So she was angry a lot, and resentful. Fortunately for Colleen, people were there to help her. Unfortunately for Sally, no one was there for her until the judge made that courageous decision.”

Courageous?

“Oh sure. Sally had already shown she could be violent.”

But Kay saw something beneath the rebellious trappings, the black lipstick, the mean language, the angry attitude.

“She saw,” Fonseca says, “a young girl who needed help. And she found that when you help someone, you usually help yourself as well.”

The film has been called a Mother’s Day tribute.

“Oh definitely,” Lyndsy Fonseca says. “Among all the wonderful things that we honor in our mothers, is their ability to love us and make us feel secure, and I think Kay does that with Sally.”

(Note: Lyndsy Fonseca’s new series, “Big Love,” will premiere later this year.)

IN FOCUS: Eddie McClintock (“Full Frontal”) says a lot of men will see themselves in Ben Rosen, the character he plays in “Confessions of an American Bride,” airing Monday, May 9, on Lifetime. In the film, Rosen’s proposal has been accepted, and his fiancee, Samantha (Sam) Hoyt, played by Shannon Elizabeth (“American Pie”), gets caught up in the plans for their wedding, only to find that she and Ben seem to disagree on everything. They split, and she finds herself being wooed by Luke (Geoff Stultz, “7th Heaven”), a former college crush. But very soon she realizes what a treasure she had in Ben, and decides to win him back.

“Ben is like a lot of men who find themselves part of a couple,” McClintock says, “and discover they have no idea what it’s all about.”